"Skinny Dipping" - the skinny on current events, life, sports, and politics from a humorist's perspective by Rose A. Valenta

Friday, April 24, 2009

Can You Think and Chew Wrigley's at the Same Time?

Wrigley's is sponsoring a study trying to determine if chewing gum in the classroom results in less stress and higher grades for students.

I could have told them that it does without the expensive study. After all, I wore the stuff on my nose often enough when I got caught with it in school. Plus, the advertising mascots, the Doublemint Twins, had their pictures glued to the inside of 70% of the boy's lockers.

When report cards came out, those with the mascots and fewer blackheads on the tips of their noses, got higher grades than the kids on Riddlin, broiled fish, and spinach:

According to the study, Wrigley says that the reason schools ban the use of chewing gum is because of bad disposal habits. Janitors claim to have found the stuff stuck to chairs, desks, under tables, and on the walls in the John. I maintain that the primary reason gum is banned is because of the cracking noise some people make while chewing. It often sounds like a Colt 45 going off in the lavatory, or the grand finale to an Emeril Lagasse "Cajun Cooking with Dynamite!" show, I gar-on-tee!

Now, if Wrigley was smart, it would get someone in the lab to manufacture a grainy fluoride wonder that can be chewed in lieu of brushing. Kids hate to brush their teeth and adults are often too busy working, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, helping with homework, car pooling to and from the gym, or walking the dog.

As a working mother, I actually slept through a NASCAR race once. While the pit crew was loudly sucking off the lugs and changing the tires on the Juicy Fruit car, I dreamt that I was writing a Stephen King-type novel about a vacuum cleaner that contained a black hole from the Large Hadron Collider and sucked up half of Switzerland. Just as I was about to give the monstrosity a title, some red-neck Godzilla from Dover, Delaware, startled me when he jumped up and yelled "YEAH! JUAN MONTOYA!" He had a very hairy back where the number 42 was neatly shaved out. I was pissed, as that was the first time in six weeks I was able to take a productive nap.

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About Me

Twitter: @rosevalenta Humor columnist.
Welcome to Rosie's Renegade Humor Blog. The word "Renegade" describes it all - seriocomic musings about current events, politics, sports, and humorous happenings from around the world. You know, "Skinny Dipping!"
I attend the bi-annual Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop at the University of Dayton, am one of the directors of the Robert Benchley Society, and the previous Membership Chair of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.
I wrote for a subsidiary of McGraw-Hill for 12 years, as a technical staff writer and freelanced for other industry publications. I took creative writing courses at Delaware Technical College and attended classes at the Philadelphia Improv Theater. Many of my articles are syndicated and have appeared in USA TODAY, Newsday.com, The Courier Post, The Wall Street Journal, and many other publications.

I am available for speaking engagements, please e-mail: ebww2014@comcast.net